Civil Procedure I

Civil Procedure I is an introduction to procedures employed by state and federal courts for resolution of civil disputes. The course will investigate the process of forum selection, the pleadings stage of litigation, the discovery process, and the summary judgment mechanism as a device for terminating litigation prior to trial. In addition, the course will investigate alternatives to traditional civil litigation such as arbitration and mediation.

Comparative Constitutional Law: Religious Pluralism

Course Description

The role of religion in civil society is increasingly vexing world-wide. Particularly difficult is the question of accommodation of religion in social orders that aspire to be governed by the rule by law. An obvious example that frequently arises is the conflict between rights of women and traditional religious societies. Often there is great tension between protection of individual rights and protection of religious (and often ethnic) minorities - necessary in pluralistic nations. In this course, we will start by examining the various interpretations of the religion clauses in the United States Constitution and then turn to a study of various constitutional patterns in other countries to get a handle on the range of alternative solutions that exist to address a problem common to virtually all governments. Students will be required to write a paper that compares the strategies chosen by a region or country of the student's choice with either another system or that of the United States.

We will meet regularly, at the scheduled time for approximately the first third of the semester. In the middle third of the semester, I will meet individually with each student regularly for paper conferences. In the last third of the semester, we will resume meeting as a group to allow students to present their work to the other students. Feedback from other students will be received during these meetings. I look forward to free-wheeling discussions and especially to learning from the students' studies of various cultures.

Constitutional Law Topics

Course Description

Constitutional law topics will investigate Comparative Constitutional Law.  It will cover issues that are interesting in U.S. constitutional law - privacy, surveillance, religion, free speech etc. and compare how those issues are addressed in other democratic societies.  We'll use the Tushnet casebook and students may choose the topic in which they're most interested for purposes of the paper.

Federal Jurisdiction

This course concerns the proper place of the federal courts in a federalist system. The nature of federal judicial power, its relationship to federal and state legislative power, and its relationship to state judicial systems are analyzed. The civil rights case is the primary vehicle for this analysis. The course also examines the relationship of tribal judicial systems to federal and state courts.

Introduction to Constitutional Law

Course Description

This course is an introduction to the study of Constitutional Law. The focus will be on the structural framework established by the Constitution, including principles of federalism and the role of the Supreme Court in policing the constitutional order. Among other things, we will study the doctrine of judicial review, the reach of federal legislative power, limits on the reach of state power, the workings of the Supreme Court, and separation of powers and limits on the exercise of federal judicial power.